Principles of Comparative Politics: Second Edition

Author(s):William Clark, Matt Golder, Sona Nadenicheck

Description:

The groundbreaking first edition of Principles of Comparative Politicsoffered the most comprehensive and up-to-date view of the rich world of comparative inquiry, research, and scholarship. Now, this thoroughly revised second edition offers students an even better guide to cross-national comparison and why it matters. The new edition retains its focus on the enduring questions with which scholars grapple, the issues about which consensus has started to emerge, and the tools comparativists use to get at the complex problems in the field. Improving organization and integrating the latest scholarship, important changes include (but are not limited to):

A new "Varieties of Dictatorship" chapter as well as clearer headings signaling coverage of authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the text;

A delegation, or principal-agent, framework is introduced as a unifying framework for analyzing different types of democracy in the “Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Democracies” chapter. A slightly modified classification scheme is also used for identifying these democracies.

A significant reorganizations of the "What is Science?" chapter so that there is greater emphasis on the scientific method and less focus on the ins and outs of Mill’s methods